“The last glacier”

After dedicating my previous collection, based on the fragmentation of drift-ice in Jokulsarlon and the contrast in landscapes (for example in Vik i Myrdal, where the pointy rocks raise from a dark sea: I translated this by combining the fragmented pieces with floaty & draped jersey t-shirts and knitwear), the beauty and power of Icelandic nature…

…Watching a documentary about the – due to global warming and underlying volcano’s – threatened glaciers, I couldn’t turn my back on this…

In clothing I wanted to express the consequences of a changing environment, a feeling of isolated wondering, I translated this thought, by going back to the most primitive way of turning fabric into clothing: This meant to me knotting fabric together.

Since reference to classical men’s clothing is very important to me, I took the knotting one step further by making it an essential part in the coup of the garment; the knots are a way to connect sleeves to a jacket, to make a pocket come out of the garment, …

The reality of devastating volcanic eruption was the starting point for the colour scheme:
The collection changes starts out black: a translation of a few different influences: the black silhouettes resulted from a feeling of silence, of quietly mourning and saying goodbye. Also they refer to darkness, to volcanic ash blacking out sunlight.

The choice to use a check fabric was pretty obvious to mo, it represent the clan feel, the family feel, also it is used a lot in African tribes, so for me this type of fabric has the duality that is so important to me .

The collection ends in white: a reference to hope, nature’s victory, a new consciousness, returning ice, a blank canvas.

The duality I feel when I’m in Iceland is pretty much the same as the duality between the black an white in the collection, it is the feeling of being overpowered and in power, the feeling of loneliness and silence, of comforting and threatening, …

It’s a duality that will keep on inspiring me … just like the country of Iceland inspires me…

Photo : yves de brabander